I'll continue to ride outside, and train with a class, and use my trainer at home. Weather is the mother of invention;

__________________When I ride my bike I feel free and happy and strong. I'm liberated from the usual nonsense of day to day life. Solid, dependable, silent, my bike is my horse, my fighter jet, my island, my friend. Together we will conquer that hill and thereafter the world.

My regular recreational ride route takes me right past a gym. There are always a bunch of SUVs and Hummers stopped, idling, with one person in them, obviously waiting for a parking space close to the door so they won't have to walk a half block to go inside and exercise.

Having taken the Concord, MA tour a long time ago (lovely place), I was under the impression they huddled around the fireplace reading books all winter long.

Actually, unlike the normal Hollywood portrayal where everyone used a horse, most people, who lived in towns or villages, didn't have one, because a horse was very expensive, required expensive storage, maintenance and fuel, rural people had them, most were farmers and had work horses and businesses would have them, the average person didn't. Most people though, if you drew a circle 5 miles across centred at the building they were born in, they lived, worked, shopped, died and were buried within that circle. The concept of living in one town and working in another town 40 miles away, has only been in the last 60 years or so, after the beginning of the reign of the car. 100 years ago, you didn't need a gym, you did heavy labour in your job, which kept you in shape.

The gym was called a barn, and one walked through the snow to get to it. After chopping up some wood and hauling it to the house via sled or wheelbarrow, you got the reward of heat and light. It's very hard for me to imagine exercising without a similar reward.

My kids went to a gym for their high school PE classes and, as it was the last class of the day, I would sometimes pick them up there. As I waited for them in the lobby, I'd occasionally see people take the elevator to the second floor to use the stair climbers.